There’s a growing backlash as well, but so far the pace of installing the cameras is way ahead of removing them.
The Houston region has quietly become a hotspot for a powerful technology that links thousands of license-plate reading cameras installed by cities, homeowners associations, school districts and businesses into a nationwide surveillance network.
Police say the technology is a cost effective way to solve crimes, but residents are questioning whether the alleged benefits to public safety outweigh the risk to privacy as officers in Pasadena, Baytown and Fort Bend County are investigated for abusing the technology and news reports highlight dozens of cases nationwide of police using the tool for stalking.
Growing numbers of residents across the political spectrum are crowding public meetings to call for limits or outright bans on the cameras from leading vendor Flock Technology and its competitors. Watchdog websites have sprung up to monitor how many cameras are spreading across the Houston region and the country. And some activists have turned vigilante, vandalizing at least eight cameras in recent weeks across Houston.
In response to the public outcry, some cities in the Houston area and across Texas have reevaluated their use of the cameras.
[…]
Officials with the Houston Police Department did not respond to a request for comment, but local law enforcement officials have spoken of the technology’s benefits since at least 2021. It’s also been cited in court records in the shooting death of rapper BTB Savage, with investigators describing how they tracked a suspect’s vehicle in the moments after the shooting and then followed it across the city.
[…]
The Magnolia Police Department recently canceled its contract with Flock.
“This was due to community concerns, as well as my own concerns, about the program,” Chief Kyle Montgomery said.
And League City Mayor Nick Long has proposed creating a citizens advisory committee to review the police department’s use of Flock cameras.
“I completely understand why some people are wary of them,” Long said. “Nobody wants to live in a surveillance state. But on the other side, I do find them valuable and inexpensive.”
Each camera costs League City about $2,000 annually and there are about 30 in town, which is cheaper than hiring an officer, Long said.
“We need to strike a balance,” he said. “If we don’t, it will get regulated out of existence, just like red light cameras.”
See here for recent reporting on Flock elsewhere in the state. This story notes resistance to Flock in Conroe, and cited a 2024 estimate of about 3,800 cameras in the Houston region. Minus a few that have been taken down outside of approved channels, of course. As for organized opposition to Flock cameras, we haven’t seen as much of that inside Houston yet. I do think we’ll get there, though. In the meantime, having had a look around the state, I wanted to note what the local landscape looks like at this time. It’s sure to be different in the future.